etsu: 2011-2014

Masculinities and Globalization/ R.W. Connell

In this article, Connell expresses that she believes that masculinity is a feature of the world society. Connell suggests that the world as a community has passed along subtly gendered information; For instance, gender roles. A glance into the ideal multinational executive man is that they are working and their all too dependent wife is at home doing domestic chores; such as, raising the children. This is not to suggest that other global societies exactly mirror this model, but that it does exist. In bigger corporations you can see that most high-up, influential people are males. The idea that males being in these positions are accepted as normal in the global society can be gathered by media or simply historically, traditionally. Media portrays male dominance, and traditionally males have also led in political offices.

Connell stated, “To the extent that particular institutions become dominant in world society, the patterns of masculinity embedded in them may become global standards. Masculine dress is an interesting indicator: almost every political leader in the world now wears the uniform of the Western business executive.” This is something that I never thought about, which goes to show just how standard it is. I find it interesting that the westernized society is rubbing off on the global community, however, this makes it much more difficult to incorporate non-masculine ideas.